In a grand gesture, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav is planning to pay homage to Chirag Paswan’s father and former Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan on his birth anniversary on July 5, reports said. RJD also marks its foundation day on July 5, but this time reports say the celebrations will be preceded by a small tribute to Ram Vilas Paswan, who died in October last year.
On the same day, Chirag Paswan plans to launch a statewide roadshow in Bihar from his father’s constituency Hajipur.
On Wednesday, Tejashwi Yadav had urged Chirag Paswan to reconsider his one-sided love for the NDA and decide who he wants to stand with. The Bihar Leader of Opposition also alleged that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was the mastermind in the LJP split.
Speaking to reporters at the Patna airport on his return from Delhi, Mr Yadav also reminded Chirag Paswan that in 2005 and 2010, Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal United facilitated similar splits in the LJP.
On the other hand Yadav said, his father and RJD chief Lalu Prasad had helped Ram Vilas Paswan get a Rajya Sabha seat after he lost his Lok Sabha seat.
The seeds of the revolt against Paswan were sown when he decided to break away from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in November during the Bihar election and focused his energies on defeating ally Nitish Kumar.
The five MPs — Pashupati Kumar Paras (Hajipur), Choudhary Mehboob Ali Qaisar (Khagaria), Chandan Kumar (Nawada), Veena Devi (Vaishali) and Prince Raj (Samastipur) —met Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and had demanded to elect Paras as LJP parliamentary party leader.However, Lok Sabha Secretariat had issued a circular confirming Paras as leader of the LJP in the Lok Sabha, ousting Chirag Paswan.
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While the LJP won just one assembly seat out of Bihar’s 243, the party cost Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal-United (JDU) at least 32 seats. For Nitish Kumar, it meant a vastly diminished status in the NDA with the BJP emerging as the dominant partner.
In other India news, Chidambaram said that the Congress party and other J&K parties and leaders want statehood first and elections afterwards.